Lean Quote: Leadership is an Action, Not a Position

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Leadership is an action, not a position." — Donald McGannon  

Often managers spot a chance to do something valuable for their company, but for some reason, they cannot get started. Even if they begin the project, they give up when they see the first big hurdle. The inability to take purposeful action seems to be pervasive across companies. Managers tend to ignore or postpone dealing with crucial issues which require reflection, systematic planning, creative thinking, and above all, time.

If you do nothing, nothing changes. Things at rest have a tendency to remain at rest. Be aware of items that stall your action. It's better to have a 50-percent improvement right away than it is to take no action and hope for a 100-percent improvement sometime in the future.

The only cure for inactivity is action. That’s why the first step in creating a successful culture of execution is creating a bias toward action. People who make things happen need to be praised and rewarded. People who don’t should be coached to change, or weeded out. Failure cannot be unduly punished. Unless people feel free to make mistakes, they will not feel free to take bold actions.

For leaders, action is one of the most important traits they can embody.  Taking action means getting things done.  It means seizing the initiative.  It conveys momentum, and energy, and creating something new, something that didn’t exist before.  And this excites followers and others who understand that going towards something is always better than sitting around staring at the wall.

 

Book Review: 12 Principles of Manufacturing Excellence

Explaining how to implement and sustain a top-down strategy for manufacturing excellence, The 12 Principles of Manufacturing Excellence: A Leader’s Guide to Achieving and Sustaining Excellence, by Larry E. Fast (CRC Press, 2011), provides a comprehensive, proven approach for delivering world-class performance while also cultivating the right culture through leadership and mentoring.

Written for operations and manufacturing leaders and supervisors, this book provides a blueprint for virtually anyone that is challenged to find efficiency and profitability in their business. The text's comprehensive approach provides guidance on cultivating the right culture through leadership and mentoring. The author guides readers along the path to achieving organization alignment, both vertically and horizontally, across the entire structure of their organization. He provides readers with a method for tracking progress-plant by plant, and function by function.

Tapping into four decades of leadership experience, 35 years of it in the manufacturing industry, Larry Fast explains how to achieve vertical and horizontal alignment across your organization. He details a clear pathway to excellence via the 12 Principles of Manufacturing Excellence and provides a method for tracking progress—plant by plant and function by function. Emphasizing the importance of using Lean and Six Sigma tools to improve your business, the book chapters:

THE 12 PRINCIPLES OF MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE

The Manufacturing Excellence Strategy

Manufacturing Principle 1: Safety

Manufacturing Principle 2: Good Housekeeping and Organization

Manufacturing Principle 3: Authorized Formal Systems

Manufacturing Principle 4: Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

Manufacturing Principle 5: Process Capability

Manufacturing Principle 6: Product Quality

Manufacturing Principle 7: Delivery Performance

Manufacturing Principle 8: Visual Management

Manufacturing Principle 9: Continuous Improvement

Manufacturing Principle 10: Communication

Manufacturing Principle 11: Training

Manufacturing Principle 12: Operator-Led Process Control

The Plant Manager’s Role

The Manufacturing Manager’s Role

The Materials Manager’s Role

The Process Engineering Manager’s Role

The Maintenance Manager’s Role

The Quality Manager’s Role

The Human Resource Manager’s Role

The Finance Manager’s Role

Sustaining Manufacturing Excellence

12 Principles of Manufacturing Excellence was a best seller in its category and a 2nd Edition was published Sept. 24, 2015. It features a new Chapter 1 on leadership, various updates of anecdotes, and new electronic tools on the accompanying CD.

This resource-rich book will allow you to spell out leadership expectations and provide your employees and associates with a clear understanding of their individual roles. Helping you keep everyone in your organization focused during the quest towards sustainable manufacturing excellence, the accompanying CD supplies the tools you and your team will need to pursue it with passion, confidence, and urgency.

Fast’s book encompasses most if not all of the areas of manufacturing excellence that are important to our business and leadership culture. It is full of common sense examples of implementations, and ideas that, when embraced by leadership, can be sold to associates that are committed to the journey. The simplicity in which these principles are described and the requirements of various management roles in driving excellence through these principles are of great value to any organization that is serious about driving change and improvement.

I strongly recommend this book to others either thinking about how to begin your journey, or those who may need to re-energize your team that's already on this journey to transform manufacturing!

Lean Assessments Are Valuable on Your Journey

Anyone who has done a search on Lean Assessments online knows there are dozens of models.  Are they necessary? I would say yes. If you do not know where you are, how do you know where you’re going? Peter Drucker’s famous saying “what gets measured, gets done” is popular because it is true. An assessment is not merely an audit of the current status. It also suggests the wanted position. It creates a strong “expected-to-improve” environment, and it indicates were to go next. Thus, an assessment provides focus for the improvement, fosters attention from management, and creates a desire for good scores throughout the organization.

Leaders often think they understand what needs to be improved; however, that isn’t always true. Most companies use external auditors to perform financial audits and for ISO9000 compliance so why not Lean. Lean has a greater chance of being successfully deployed if it is viewed as strategic and is driven from the top by the CEO who has established a compelling reason to engage in Lean.

Lean Assessments are intended to provide a sense of where your company is at any one time along its lean journey. The assessment helps to investigate, evaluate, and measure key areas of maturity as your organizations progresses along the Lean journey. They are intended to be used as a guide for setting priorities for transformation and improvement efforts.

Because assessments motivate actions, one should not go easy with them. If not designed carefully they drive the wrong behaviors. One should take great care in developing assessments that are helpful for the organization. Blindly copying other firm’s assessments is a dangerous route. What gets measured, gets done, so be sure to measure what you want to be done.

What is your experience with Lean Assessments?  What advice would you give others?

Lean Quote: Leadership and Learning are Indispensable to Each Other

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." — John F. Kennedy

In a Lean organization, learning is critical, and line management's direct responsibility. Lean is based on how people think; simply defined, Lean is shared thinking. Management and employees need common philosophy, ideas, and principles. Leaders can't just put workers into situations, and hope they learn the right things. They should take responsibility for the message, combining real-life experience with direct coaching. An organization's principles should become guideposts to help people make tough decisions.

Lean Leaders must not only be teachers, they must also preach and promote teaching at all levels. Lean Leaders make sure that all of their direct reports are good teachers. In classical leadership, the role of teaching is frequently delegated – not so with the Lean Leaders.

To teach, a leader has to learn, and learning Lean is more than a cerebral exercise. By applying Lean to everything, a leader becomes a more effective teacher. Remember what leadership is really about: It's not a job; it's an act. Leaders have to learn how to teach, build creative tension, and eliminate fear and comfort. Leaders need to actively participate in the transformation of the business, and apply Lean to their own jobs.

 

Remembering the Sacrifice of Those Who Enable Freedom

Memorial Day is a time to remember the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is a day to celebrate former and present service members who protect our freedom.

And I’m proud to be an American,

where at least I know I’m free.

And I won’t forget the men who died,

who gave that right to me. -Lee Greenwood

Memorial Day is a day of reflection and remembrance. It is a day to remember all of our Fallen Heroes from all of the wars. It is a day to think about the families that will forever grieve for their lost loved one. It is a day to be thankful to those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice. They fought and died to win the freedom and democracy that we Americans cherish so dearly. They also fought and died to bring that same freedom and democracy to the people of other countries as well.

Take a moment this Memorial Day to remember all those men and women who have so bravely and honorably served this country. The courage and sacrifice of all who died in military service will not be forgotten.

Lean Quote: You Manage Things; You Lead People

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"You manage things; you lead people." — Grace Murray Hopper

While a leader can be a boss, not every boss is a leader. The distinction between being a boss and being a leader may seem small, but it means the world to the people who work for you.

The definition of leadership is “a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.” That is why it is my belief that if you are a good leader for your organization, then you really don’t need to worry about being The Boss. You will gain more influence and have more positive impact on your organization if your team feels valued and respected and has an understanding of where you expect them to be headed.

Here are few key points on leadership:

• A company is a community, not a machine.  When building a synergy on any team, you have to start by building trust and confidence up and down the chain of command.  Start by developing a vision that is easy to communicate and easy to comprehend. Once your team understands the collective vision and goals of the organization, individual goals become closely tied to the collective goal.  Brainstorm with your team and listen intently to suggestions and incorporate best practices.
• Management is service, not control.  Once a vision is established, a great leader constantly queries his/her managers to see if they have the tools necessary to excel.  Once the tools are determined and obtained, empower your managers to make decisions on their own, but always make it clear that you are available to assist at any time.
• Employees are my peers, not my children.  This point ties into the previous point about providing service.  Nobody in any organization likes to be “talked down to” or constantly second-guessed.  Treat your team members as you would expect to be treated.  Remember, you want to encourage the sharing of ideas